Culture Shock

Update: 4

My first impression of Quito was that it's a bit of an Africanised version of Europe. Or a European version of Africa.

We landed at about 6.30pm local time with our bodies thinking it was 1.30am. You can imagine how we felt after a 5am start in Rome, about 13 hrs travelling and then landing in Quito which is at nearly 3,000m - we were shattered! So an early night followed.

Day 2: Still knackered we head into town in the rain. Very much aware of the pickpocket and knifepoint robbery stories we'd head about, we caught the Trole (tram) into the New Town which I've subsequently learnt from my Spanish teacher is called "Gringoland" for all the western backpackers hanging out there. In the rain, clinging onto our wallets and jumping at every bump on the crowded tram, we were both glad to get back to our room in the wonderful Hotel San Francisco de Quito. I think it must have been the rain and jet lag, but couldn't help wondering what the hell we'd got ourselves into!

Day 3 onwards: Since the Trole in the rain incident, we've chilled out and are really getting into the swing of things. Spanish lessons have started and at $4 an hour, it would be rude not to max out on this, so we've got a teacher each and are doing 4 hours a day. Tam's teacher is called Sylvie and mine is called Fanny. Fanny said to me that her American students have told her this is a name in America too. I said I didn't know of anyone called Fanny, but it's a lovely name.

Our trips so far have been to Otavalo ('V's are pronounced 'B' - so "Otobalo") where there is a massive indigenous market selling everything from handicrafts to livestock to fresh fruit and veg. It's a bit chaotic, but we managed to buy ourselves some substitute wedding bands to replace those left in England. I took (what I think) are some pretty good pictures there so was quite chuffed. The bus trip there was something to behold: a rickety old thing takes off from the main terminus and for the first half hour stops every 10 meters or so to allow a young guy (possibly still a teenager) to jump on and off shouting "Para Otavalo! para Otavalo!" What started out as pretty spacious became seriously overloaded. Points of interest about this trip:

Drivers choice of music: Chris de Burgh and REM

Film: Mandatory Jean-Claude van Damme action. (Our mate Ricc swore blind that by the time we leave Latin America, we'll be experts in the field of kicking heads in and disarming bombs with 2 seconds to go. I'm psyching myself up for the Chuck Norris Quito to San Lorenzo extravaganza).

Technique:   Down hills are for accelerating. As are up hills. Brakes are only used when an animal runs in front of the bus. And only if it is of a size that will cause damage to the bus. Chickens and small dogs are fair game.

Fact: There is a "David Hasselhoff hair salon" on the main road out of Quito to the north.

I knew we weren't in Europe when we passed a cow that had been hit. It was still alive and howling with it's back legs all over the road. Three blokes had tied a rope around it and were trying to drag it off. There doesn't seem to be a culture of sympathy for animals here. We saw a similar thing with a dog that was dying in the middle of the Plaza de la Independencia. Nobody blinked an eye.

Our highlight so far has to have been the visit to the Equator. Mitad del Mundo (literally "Middle of the World") is a massive monument built to commemorate the finding of the exact point of the Equator in the 1700s (I think) by a Frenchman. The funny thing is... behind this impressive monument where every single visitor (including us) has their photo taken on the boldly marked out "Equator" and past the tourist hell of curio shops and overpriced restaurants is the tiny eclectic museum called the Inti-Nan which is where the native people found the Equator hundreds of years ago. This is where you can see water run straight though a plug hole. 2 meters either side and correolis forces cause the water to run out clockwise in the southern hemisphere and and anti-clockwise in the north. I would have paid 10 times the $2 dollars we did to see that!

I still can't get my head around why the government sustains the monument when it's 150m out - and can you imagine how p!$$ed off you'd be if you went all the way to the "Equator" and got back home only to find you hadn't!

Anyway, water-trick aside, I couldn't close this update without mentioning my experience on the bus there...

Tam and I ended up sitting apart and my travelling companion for the 40 minute trip was a native Indian (I'm still not sure on the different tribes, and the political correctness of the term "Indian" but everyone uses it). He was of the tribe where the men have long black ponytails and wear those black felt hats. We didn't talk until the kid (who hangs out the door shouting the destination) came to ask for money. I couldn't make out what he said, so asked the Indian. When he established that I couldn't speak a word of Spanish, he says "Vous parlez Francais?" I was a bit taken aback and asked him in my basic French how he came to speak French in Ecuador. It turns out he'd spent two years in Switzerland as a musician playing pipes. I think this is a case of a Greater Being trying to teach me a lesson. For those of you unaware of my gripe with Peruvian (in this case Ecuadorian) pipe-musicians, I give you this gripe I wrote a year ago! 

Anyway - gotta go. Fanny's set me a load of homework.

Take it easy, and remember: If you're bald and are visiting the Equator, take a hat. Red heads aren't cool!